DBWI - Entente Victory Mod and the Legacy of the Weltkrieg

I was playing the classic Entente Victory HoI2 mod recently, and it made me think: would things really have been that different if the Entente had won? No Second Civil War in the States, no Syndicalism, no Japanese colonial war with (and victory over) Germany?

OOC: For anyone who hasn't played Hearts of Iron, this DBWI is set in the world of its Kaiserreich mod. In that, Syndicalism takes the place of Nazism, there's a huge Second Civil War in America, and Germany snaps up colonies in the wake of Syndicalist revolution in Britain and France but this leads to further troubles, in particular in Asia...

Nice to play but ASB as hell. The Germans turning into genocidal nationalists starting a two front war on their own, almost win, and then lose? Who wrote that, like seriously. And then again, a German invasion of Britain isnt plausible according to them, but the British can invade Normandy? ....

I think things could have gone very differently for the United States. If it weren't for Huey Long and the AUS and Jack Reed and the CSA, the Second Civil War would have been avoided.

By the way, I've always been intrigued by the choice of Franklin Delano Roosevelt as POTUS in the mod. I've always considered Garner as one of the greatest Presidents of the country, but I've also found his personality a bit lacking, and having done my research on FDR, I consider him to be a figure with a lot of potential, especially when he was Governor of New York and then Democratic Party leader, and as a distant relative of Theodore, a very curious individual. If only he hadn't been shot by that Firster in 1932 (I think his name was Jake Featherston?? ). I was also intrigued by JNG being VP at the beginning of the scenario too, by the way.

Come to think of it, many of the choices for leaders were really intriguing. Communist (that's their version of Syndicalist, if I'm not wrong) Russia had a really crazy leader who I've never heard of, and then there's figures like Benito Mussolini and Oswald Mosley, who aren't perpetuating Totalist ideology but rather are a freaking National Populists (or Fascists as they're called in the game).

One of the biggest problems I had with the mod, however, was that Hitler fellow. I mean, what in the actual fuck. I've played Germany once, and I haven't lost my lunch as profusely as when I read about the secret human experiments conducted in Mittelafrika under the Goering regime. I mean, who the fuck genocides entire populations to perpetuate a racist idea like that?

OOC: I'm basing this off a game I previously played as the USA. Needless to say, it became a bit of a wank, well actually, a pretty big wank for the federal government as I was able to keep the elected federal government in power and win the Second Civil War. Also, the TVTropes page for the mod says that the Snake was a Firster and was the guy who shot FDR, so I'm rolling with that.

Opunium said:

Nice to play but ASB as hell. The Germans turning into genocidal nationalists starting a two front war on their own, almost win, and then lose? Who wrote that, like seriously. And then again, a German invasion of Britain isnt plausible according to them, but the British can invade Normandy? ....

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Look, if the Americans and Canadians managed to invade Britain and revive the United Kingdom, what's stopping the Germans from doing so? A lack of Ireland? Or two very powerful navies? The creators said that Germany in the Entente Victory timeline could not have invaded Britain because the Royal Navy is way too powerful, and additionally stated that the British did this because they had allies who could afford to fight with them and a navy capable of taking on anything the Germans had.

Plus, it's not like you had to adhere to all those arms limits. I've seen many playthroughs which show this Operation Sealion thing being carried out.

HongCanucker said:

I think things could have gone very differently for the United States. If it weren't for Huey Long and the AUS and Jack Reed and the CSA, the Second Civil War would have been avoided.

By the way, I've always been intrigued by the choice of Franklin Delano Roosevelt as POTUS in the mod. I've always considered Garner as one of the greatest Presidents of the country, but I've also found his personality a bit lacking, and having done my research on FDR, I consider him to be a figure with a lot of potential, especially when he was Governor of New York and then Democratic Party leader, and as a distant relative of Theodore, a very curious individual. If only he hadn't been shot by that Firster in 1932 (I think his name was Jake Featherston?? ). I was also intrigued by JNG being VP at the beginning of the scenario too, by the way.

Come to think of it, many of the choices for leaders were really intriguing. Communist (that's their version of Syndicalist, if I'm not wrong) Russia had a really crazy leader who I've never heard of, and then there's figures like Benito Mussolini and Oswald Mosley, who aren't perpetuating Totalist ideology but rather are a freaking National Populists (or Fascists as they're called in the game).

One of the biggest problems I had with the mod, however, was that Hitler fellow. I mean, what in the actual fuck. I've played Germany once, and I haven't lost my lunch as profusely as when I read about the secret human experiments conducted in Mittelafrika under the Goering regime. I mean, who the fuck genocides entire populations to perpetuate a racist idea like that?

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I've read some stuff about Franklin Delano Roosevelt too - a Presidency with him at the helm would have been interesting. Do you think he could have defused the tensions in America at the time, if he'd managed to become President? And kept MacArthur under control (which would have been vital)?

I actually realised recently who that guy they had running Russia in the mod was. He was Minister of Internal Security in Beria's Georgia, before it fell. It was entertaining to see him running the 'Soviet Union', but total ASB in my opinion...

Yeah...Hitler... OK, IRL the stuff that happened in Mittelafrika was stomach-turning, but the idea of it being...industrialised like that was unbelievable. Though National France's punitive actions against native populations came close in sheer awfulness...

HongCanucker said:

OOC: I'm basing this off a game I previously played as the USA. Needless to say, it became a bit of a wank, well actually, a pretty big wank for the federal government as I was able to keep the elected federal government in power and win the Second Civil War. Also, the TVTropes page for the mod says that the Snake was a Firster and was the guy who shot FDR, so I'm rolling with that.

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OOC: Well, unless you deliberately hamstring yourself, a lot of games turn into wanks, especially thanks to dodgy AI Good for you - the last time I played, the US turned into a MacArthur dictatorship...

Opunium said:

Nice to play but ASB as hell. The Germans turning into genocidal nationalists starting a two front war on their own, almost win, and then lose? Who wrote that, like seriously. And then again, a German invasion of Britain isnt plausible according to them, but the British can invade Normandy? ....

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The part I found ASB was how quickly France falls if you don't play them or Germany. I mean, look how long the Second Weltkrieg actually lasted...

HongCanucker said:

Look, if the Americans and Canadians managed to invade Britain and revive the United Kingdom, what's stopping the Germans from doing so? A lack of Ireland? Or two very powerful navies? The creators said that Germany in the Entente Victory timeline could not have invaded Britain because the Royal Navy is way too powerful, and additionally stated that the British did this because they had allies who could afford to fight with them and a navy capable of taking on anything the Germans had.

Plus, it's not like you had to adhere to all those arms limits. I've seen many playthroughs which show this Operation Sealion thing being carried out.

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Me too. You have to be a damn good player, though - the last time I tried, every one of my TPs got shot to hell...

My great-grandad was in the Royal Marines for the Liberation of Britain. He used to tell my granddad and his brother stories...like how when the fleet sailed, everyone across the entire fleet started singing 'Spanish Ladies' and choking up on 'we've received orders to sail for old England'. And the Canadians, too, not just the exiles...

The control of Russia by the Communists from 1917 onwards rather than being crushed has always interested me, even it got a little to ridiculous with how much authority that Stalin figure had.

Gaius Julius Magnus said:

The control of Russia by the Communists from 1917 onwards rather than being crushed has always interested me, even it got a little to ridiculous with how much authority that Stalin figure had.

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I know. I mean, it's not like even Bukharin, the de facto leader of Soviet Russia during the Second Civil War, had that much power.

HongCanucker said:

I know. I mean, it's not like even Bukharin, the de facto leader of Soviet Russia during the Second Civil War, had that much power.

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well in all fairness Beria controlled Georgia to that extent OTL till his death.

The mod's Soviet Russia mostly seems just a scaled up Menshivik Georgia on steroids with Marxist-Leninism than Syndicalism.

ooc: also syndicalism technically replaces communism or at least soviet styled communism in kaiserreich than nazism. national populism replaces nazism and fascism.

Gaius Julius Magnus said:

The control of Russia by the Communists from 1917 onwards rather than being crushed has always interested me, even it got a little to ridiculous with how much authority that Stalin figure had.

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I thought it was pretty uncreative. They just took Wrangel from OTL and just made him a Communist essentially. Also, the idea that Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire immediately fell apart after the Entente won is ridiculous. Those empires were incredibly stable, and the Ottomans only died because of the Cairo-Riyadh-Tehran axis.

Octosteel said:

I thought it was pretty uncreative. They just took Wrangel from OTL and just made him a Communist essentially. Also, the idea that Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire immediately fell apart after the Entente won is ridiculous. Those empires were incredibly stable, and the Ottomans only died because of the Cairo-Riyadh-Tehran axis.

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IIRC the Entente were planning to dismantle them if they won.

President Lenin said:

IIRC the Entente were planning to dismantle them if they won.

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How would the exhausted Entente powers enforce a peace that carves up the Ottomans and Austrians? France in 1918 is on the verge of syndicalist revolution and civil war.

The British should probably get one Arab puppet to prop up against a still decaying Ottos, not French Syria and British Irag and "Transjordan" (which is a hilariously improbable name).

casaubon said:

How would the exhausted Entente powers enforce a peace that carves up the Ottomans and Austrians? France in 1918 is on the verge of syndicalist revolution and civil war.

The British should probably get one Arab puppet to prop up against a still decaying Ottos, not French Syria and British Irag and "Transjordan" (which is a hilariously improbable name).

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Yeah, I found all that to be pretty implausible too.

casaubon said:

How would the exhausted Entente powers enforce a peace that carves up the Ottomans and Austrians? France in 1918 is on the verge of syndicalist revolution and civil war.

The British should probably get one Arab puppet to prop up against a still decaying Ottos, not French Syria and British Irag and "Transjordan" (which is a hilariously improbable name).

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You forget what the main PoD of the mod is dude. The United States joins the Weltkreig in 1917, that leads to the Germans hastily making a Summer Offensive to defeat the French before the reinforcements from the US arrives (Which is quite similar to what the French did in 1918 actually)

The Ottomans were hanging by a thread when the Summer Offensive hit, and were in dire state thanks to Allenby utterly trouncing the Ottoman forces in a last ditch offensive in 1918.

With the Germans having dedicated all of their Forces into a Early Offensive in France, the UK could have easily pushed as far as Aleppo before any Effective force could be brought into effect by the Ottomans.

Operation Teutoburg doesn't occur either, instead the Entente ends up pushing through Bulgaria and forcing the Bulgars into an Armistice, which quickly panics the Ottomans into doing the same.

While Italy pulls off some impressive masterstroke against the Austrians that seems a little implausible to some, it important to remind everyone of how much the Germans have been propping the Austrians up after the earlier victories of Russia before her armistice and revolution.

By 1918-1919 the war was in its end game with the Germans holding an advantage over the Entente that could have easily been shifted by one Large fresh nation supporting France.



Anyone else find it hilarious that even When Trotsky isn't a complete failure during the revolution, that he still ends up utterly hated and in Mexico? that made me chuckle.

HongCanucker said:

Yeah, I found all that to be pretty implausible too. Also, the fact that the expedition is mentioned to be led by none other than T.E. Lawrence. Really? How did a syndicalist rabble-rouser in northern Germany wind up leading an expedition in the Arabian Peninsula when he was not even 30 in the timeline?

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((OOC: Even in the Kaiserreich timeline T.E. Lawrence started the Arab Revolt, that didn't change))

Arkocento said:

((OOC: Even in the Kaiserreich timeline T.E. Lawrence started the Arab Revolt, that didn't change))

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OOC: Fixed.

Arkocento said:

Anyone else find it hilarious that even When Trotsky isn't a complete failure during the revolution, that he still ends up utterly hated and in Mexico? that made me chuckle.

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I just find the fact that you can even get an event to assassinate him when playing as the USSR hilarious. Why would that even be necessary? Hitler may be like Goering but Stalin really is complete bonkers, even the Mad Baron can't compare.

HongCanucker said:

I just find the fact that you can even get an event to assassinate him when playing as the USSR hilarious. Why would that even be necessary? Hitler may be like Goering but Stalin really is complete bonkers, even the Mad Baron can't compare.

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Do you see the level of Industry that the USSR has in that game? Stalin may be an awful guy, and that Great Purge thing he did was bizarre but give the guy credit where its due, he industrialized the hell out of Russia.

Also i think the that Hitler being such a big bad was just th developers trying to send some message about how even the best of us could be bad under terrible circumstances you know? If Adolf had survived and gone home to a broken country he could have really ended up radicalized by it, like so many British men and women after the war ended

Arkocento said:

Do you see the level of Industry that the USSR has in that game? Stalin may be an awful guy, and that Great Purge thing he did was bizarre but give the guy credit where its due, he industrialized the hell out of Russia.

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Fair point. Even I was awestruck by how much industrial power the USSR gets even at the beginning. And to think that Marxist ideology states that revolution must occur in industrialized, capitalist nations, when it did in a feudalistic and largely agrarian state...

Not a Marxist or syndicalist here BTW, just giving a fair point. If you're a Red anywhere in "German" China these days, much less a Legation City like Hong Kong, you're gonna have a bad time. At least the censorship has relented a lot these past few decades, so I can read and post on the board.

HongCanucker said:

Not a Marxist or syndicalist here BTW, just giving a fair point. If you're a Red anywhere in "German" China these days, much less a Legation City like Hong Kong, you're gonna have a bad time. At least the censorship has relented a lot these past few decades, so I can read and post on the board.

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I've heard some of the stories - from family who travelled there, back when things were really bad. Though mind you, from what I've heard it's worse up North, in the Republic of China-Fengtien...I mean the Second Republic of China

Incidentally, what's your perspective on regional tensions there? Over here, everyone talks about the tensions between the old AoG/colonial territories and Japan's alliance bloc like it ended in the '80s when the military government fell, but I read an article in National Geographic lately that was saying things were still...fairly touchy. Especially since Japan seems to encourage the Philippines pushing its claims to those islands...